Labour doesn't understand the internet

Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, strikes an
upbeat note in his interview with The Daily Telegraph today.

That note does not ring entirely hollow. Our financial anxieties should not banish proud memories of Britain's Olympic triumphs in Beijing. However ill-conceived Labour's plans to deal with the economic crisis, Mr Burnham is entitled to regard sporting prowess as a source of optimism. He is, rightly, proud of the BBC's coverage of the Olympics – and also right to feel anger over the Brand/Ross debacle. As he says, anyone who thought that the public had lost interest in broadcasting standards has been forced to think again. Clearly, Jonathan Ross has few allies around the cabinet table just now.

Mr Burnham may also attract support from parents by floating the idea of a new rating system for websites to protect children from (for example) seeking out footage of a beheading on the internet. This rating system would be backed by new international guidelines for internet standards. But it is here that he reveals his New Labour credentials. This is an attractive-sounding scheme which (like Tony Blair's plan to march yobs to cashpoints) would be almost impossible to implement.

The Culture Secretary is young and media-savvy; can he really believe that cyberspace is susceptible to top-down regulation from government? The notion of ratings for websites betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how the internet works. Dubious, bizarre and revolting material can be accessed from virtually any computer screen in Britain, and teenagers are probably quicker at finding it than anyone else. Mr Burnham talks about "child-friendly web access"; in fact, this is readily available, but it needs parents or responsible adults to install and monitor the appropriate software.

"The internet has been empowering and democratising in many ways, but we haven't yet got the stakes in the ground to help people navigate their way safely around it," he says. The internet will not become safe for children as a result of the government driving stakes into the ground (whatever that means). It will become safe when parents recognise the destructive potential of the computer, and adopt sensible habits such as restricting online access to the main room of the house.

Mr Burnham says that his own children are closely supervised when they use the computer. No impractical rating system is necessary in his household. It is as a parent, therefore, rather than as a politician that he is pointing the way forward.